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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Ana Argandona, MD, Pathfinder International-Bolivia, 9 Galen Street, Suite 217, Watertown, MA 02472, (617) 924-7200, ghainsworth@pathfind.org
Pathfinder International/Bolivia provides training sessions on environmental and reproductive health issues to community leaders of 70 indigenous communities living in hard-to-reach areas. These training sessions empower communities to defend their environment and demand reproductive health services.
These indigenous communities often rely on harmful environmental practices for their livelihood. These practices are a result of outside influences and a lack of knowledge regarding the laws and alternative ways to generate income. The environmental sessions focuses on educating the participants on environmental laws, while teaching them sustainable agriculture and alternative ways to generate income.
Most of the target population is without health services due to a lack of adequately supplied and staffed health centers. The health training sessions educate the participants on reproductive health issues and focus on empowering the community to demand their right to these services. The community also learns how to form support networks, which allows pregnant women in need of hospital care to leave their children with community members.
The project has currently trained 25 leaders as outreach workers and in turn, they have conducted 41 workshops with 837 participants in hard-to-reach areas. These workshops disseminate environmental and reproductive health information, while teaching communities how to defend their rights on both issues.
Conclusions: There is a lack of knowledge regarding environmental and reproductive health issues and a demand for information and community education services. With adequate information and community participation, sound environmental practices can be adapted and the utilization of reproductive health services can be increased.
Learning Objectives: By the end of this session, the participant will be able to
Keywords: Reproductive Health, Indigenous Populations
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.